General Comments Markets opened steady to a penny lower yesterday, but gradually weakened as the Cyprus story unfolded and world financial markets started the week 1-2 percent lower. The dollar soared and the index was up nearly 0.7 percent at one point. Crude oil also took a big hit and traded nearly $2 a barrel lower this morning.The fact that eurozone leaders are considering automatically taking between 6.9-9.9 percent out of personal bank accounts is appalling. That fear started a mini run on banks in Cyprus and in turn created fears that similar events could happen in other eurozone countries facing similar issues (like Italy). The U.S. financial markets were sharply lower overnight, but climbed back to unchanged just before noon. C...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Pakistan’s smaller wheat farmers have been holding protests to complain about the lack of a support price for wheat and the potential expansion of GMO crop production. They also want the reinstatement of PASSCO, the governme...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.